Examples of 2 factor authentication?

Question

Hi all, I am doing a HIPAA application soon and it requires 2 factor authentication. Can anyone give me an example? I am thinking a secure login and then a form that requires the user to enter their birth date or something.

Thanks, Darren

Answer 1

Wikipedia has a great listing of various types of Two Factor Auth. Check it out here.

Answer 2

2-factor authentication usually requires something the user knows, like a password, and a token from something the user has, like a SecurID fob, or nowadays maybe a biometric identifier, like a fingerprint reader.

A password & birthday, while being two distinct things, are both knows items and wouldn't constitute a proper 2-factor identification.

See this article or search for information using "2 factor authentication", Google and Bing both show lots of references.

Answer 3

There are 3 general types of factors:

1. “Something you know” – memorized information (e.g., a password or answer to a secret question).
2. “Something you have” – possession of a unique item containing secret information (e.g., a smart card, bar code, or USB-interface device).
3. “Something you are” – a physical trait that can be converted to digital information using specialized hardware (e.g., a retina or fingerprint scan or voice recording analysis).

You need to pick from 2 of these 3 categories to have true 2-factor authentication.

Answer 4

What you're describing (password + verification input) is still single factor authentication.

Two factor authentication also requires something the user has in their possession (smart card, dongle, etc.)

Three factor authentication (for completeness) is all of the above plus some sort of biometric input from the user (fingerprint, retinal scan, hand geometry)

Answer 5

hi, 2FA will be simple One time password as hardware or software (mobile , PC ) and

we have done few deployments of 2FA tokens for HIPAA compliance.

my gtalk id is vikramsareen. if you need to see a demo then just ping me we can do a web conf and i will show you some innovative software tokens. our website is www.ezmcom.com.

regards, vikram